Prologue: Gatecrasher
Sixteen parts of alchol.
Five parts, half-distilled karvodinol.
Eight parts, Byalan lye.
Three parts of wild mandragoran extract.
A woman of her late teens sporting flowing blood-red locks, auburn eyes and a pearly visage popped the cork of a vitreous flask containing an azure semiliquid and caught scent from its open top. She poured a few drops into her tongue sticking out of her crimson lips.
"Metanoia, extra strong," she said to herself in a jest of confidence.
The wind going against her picked up, carrying the sound of her environment with it - a deafening crowd and a roaring cacophony of thunderous steps.
"Ladies and Gents, we are now on the final lap the Phracon Cup! And what a fight the racers are putting up!" blared the announcer from the stand, "Horus, Joker Jester and Iron Maiden are inch on inch and we can't be certain of who's going to be taking the prestigous prize for this year!"
It was the event that shook the Comodan islands annually. - The Pecopeco racing world's Phracon cup. At the same time each year, Comodo's wide, dusty roads turn into a battlefield of the fastest birds and riders in the region, each one vying for the prize of one million zenies.
For this race though, the contest winners were already a given. Who would be taking which place however, was of another matter. It was the final lap, the rest of the contenders were lagging at least a fourth of a league behind while the top three seeds were inches away from each other.
The crimson-haired lady wearing traditional Aldebaranian alchemist clothing patted her faded-gold coloured pecopeco. It was an odd looking bird compared to its peers, with a saddle of seamless savage hide and various support bandaging along its joints. It looked as though it had a grand past but showed just as well wrought of the times since past.
"Don't worry Horus, we'll own this race by a mile," said the she-rider as she took out a syringe and began siphoning the liquid out of the flask.
Then, a violent jolt nearly caused Horus to lose proper treading. A pecopeco had come up from behind and was now side-to-side with it.
"Nice try, lady, but this ain't the place for powder-puffers like you," chided the burly rider of the silver-feather pecopeco called Iron Maiden. That said, he pulled the beast's reigns to the far right and violently skirted the girl and her ride dangerously near the inner fence.
"God, I hate stone-age men," retorted the alchemist, "they still think we can't go any faster than laundry work!"
She slipped the syringe into the back of her pecopeco and pressed in the fluid. The pecopeco acknowledged the injection with a bellowing warble and a short boost of uncontrolled speed. She then took out two round sacks with exposed needles at their ends from her bird's numerous leatherette flask holders attacked on its wings and slipped it between the fingers of her left hands.
The alchemist pulled back a bit and let Iron Maiden through and threw the needled sacks into the advancing opponent. They landed in the feathery buttocks of Iron Maiden where they broke and immediately disintegrated. Within a few seconds, Iron Maiden's left hind leg completely froze, causing the bird to fall to its side and collide with the wooden railings.
Soon enough, a mangle of wooden splinters, dust, beast, man and blood was left behind in a cloud of smoke as the alchemist and the multi-coloured Joker Jester one upped the race.
"Ladies and Gents, with the unfortunate accident of Iron Maiden, the race for the gold is now down to two pecopecos!" shouted the announcer. There were no gasps in the audience. Instead, the roaring went a step further as the list of contenders narrowed down from the 'accident'.
"Now that that's taken cared of, shall we go on and grab the win, Horus?" said the alchemist with a smile on her doll-like face. She looked to her side and watched her final opponent carefully.
The Joker Jester - it was another one of the more queer entries of this year's cup. Its masked rider work a jester's clad and neither spoke much nor laughed – a characteristic unbecoming of a clown. The bird looked as though it had been artificially painted with striking colours, perhaps in a fool's attempt to throw off competition in confusion. More notably, since the races began, JJ had been always in second place – always less than half a second slower.
Not much of a challenge, thought Horus's rider. To the alchemist's surprise, her rival rider turned to her and said or at least said what sounded like,
"Look behind."
Just then, a blast followed by audience screams resounded from the audience stands five hundred metres from the racing pecopecos. Out of the flying reeds from the fence came a nightingale-feathered berserk-class pecopeco, ridden but unsaddled. From a frontal view - the alchemist's view, the bird looked as though its claws hardly touched the ground.
And to everybody's view, the blue bird was beginning to catch up.
"What the hell!" shouted the unbelieving alchemist. At that moment, it didn't matter if the entrant was illegal or if her real opponent was Joker Jester. What mattered was, the gatecrasher was going a lot faster than Horus!
The red-haired alchemist composed herself once more and stooped down to reduce her drag. Metanoia was starting to kick in and she was sure that Horus reaction to the chemical was both stable and sound. "We still have this race."
One second later, the alchemist turned to her back and didn't find the intruding bird. It was as though the look-behind fiasco had just been another trick up the playful joker's sleeve.
She swung her face to the right and there it was – her azure nightmare, lightning-quick and winning.
End of Chapter.
